Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today

Summary

In Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today, Widely respected Bible and Jesus scholar, N. T. Wright gives new life to the old, tattered doctrine of the authority of scripture, delivering a fresh, helpful, and concise statement on the current “battles for the Bible,” and restoring scripture as the primary place to find God’s voice.

In this revised and expanded version of The Last Word, leading biblical scholar N. T. Wright shows how both evangelicals and liberals are guilty of misreading Scripture and reveals a new model for understanding God’s authority and the Bible.

Book Preview

Scripture and the Authority of God - N. T. Wright

Publisher

PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION

Writing a book about the Bible is like building a sandcastle in front of the Matterhorn. The best you can hope to do is to catch the eye of those who are looking down instead of up, or those who are so familiar with the skyline that they have stopped noticing its peculiar beauty.

But clearly we have to do something to grab people’s attention and make them take a fresh look at some old questions. People used to talk about the battle for the Bible, and in the last generation we have seen the Bible used and abused, debated, dumped, vilified, vindicated, torn up by scholars, stuck back together again by other scholars, preached from, preached against, placed on a pedestal, trampled underfoot, and generally treated the way professional tennis players treat the ball. The more you want to win a point, the harder you hit the poor thing.

Taken as a whole, the church clearly can’t live without the Bible, but it doesn’t seem to have much idea of how to live with it. Almost all Christian churches say something in their formularies about how important the Bible is. Almost all of them have devised ways, some subtle, some less so, of ostentatiously highlighting some parts of the Bible and quietly setting aside other parts. Does this matter? If not, why not? If so, what should we do about it?

In response to those questions, let me return to the Matterhorn and the sandcastle. I have taken part in many discussions over the years about what the Bible is and what place it should occupy in Christian mission and thinking. As I have done so, I have increasingly come to the conclusion that there are many people outside and inside the church who need to be nudged to look up once more with fresh eyes, not just at the foothills, but at the crags and crevasses, at the cliffs and snowfields, and ultimately at the dazzling and dangerous summit itself. What that all means in terms of the Bible will, I hope, become clear as we proceed.

In particular, the question of how the Bible can be authoritative has echoed through a thousand recent debates in the life of the worldwide church. We have only to mention the question of sexual ethics to see at once how important, and yet how difficult, the question of biblical authority can be. We have only to think of the so-called Jesus wars in North America to see how much controversy can still be generated by the question of whether the four gospels in the New Testament are in any sense reliable as presentations of who Jesus was and why he died. And we need only mention Dan Brown’s runaway bestseller The Da Vinci Code to remind ourselves that questions about how Christianity began, and whether the New Testament can be trusted on that point, are clearly issues on which our whole culture can still be thrown into turmoil.

And that’s only the New Testament. What about the Old—the Hebrew scriptures, as they are sometimes called? Here we still find huge misunderstandings. Some Christians seem to regard the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, as equally authoritative and valid—even though Jesus himself, according to the gospels themselves, seems to have set aside the food laws and posed severe questions about the observance of the sabbath; even though Paul is shrill in his insistence that the ancient command to circumcise male children is no longer relevant for followers of Jesus; and even though the Letter to the Hebrews makes it abundantly clear that the detailed regulations about the Temple and the sacrificial system have been made redundant by the single sacrifice of Christ, the great High Priest. Other Christians, meanwhile, have taken Paul’s saying that Christ is the end of the Law as giving them cheerful permission to ignore anything and everything in the Old Testament. Is there a way through this problem?

Having made the Bible the focus of my own professional work for many years, I have become convinced that we are asking at least some of the questions in the wrong way. In an earlier article, I explored one of the central questions: How can what is mostly a narrative text be authoritative? (This article, How Can the Bible Be Authoritative? was published in Vox Evangelica 21, 1991, 7–32, and, like some other things I have written over the years, is now available at www.ntwrightpage.com.) I then developed my argument in terms of seeing the biblical story as a five-act play, with ourselves called to improvise the concluding act, in chapter 5 of The New Testament and the People of God (Fortress Press, 1992). This present little book builds on those two earlier attempts and tries to set out the question in a new way.

I have tried, in particular, to face head-on the question of how we can speak of the Bible being in some sense authoritative when the Bible itself declares that all authority belongs to the one true God and that this is now embodied in Jesus himself. The risen Jesus, at the end of Matthew’s gospel, does not say, All authority in heaven and on earth is given to the books you are all going to write, but All authority in heaven and on earth is given to me. This ought to tell us, precisely if we are taking the Bible itself as seriously as we should, that we need to think carefully what it might mean to think that the authority of Jesus is somehow exercised through the Bible. What would that look like in practice? In particular, what happens when we factor in Jesus’s own redefinition of what authority itself might mean?

For this new edition I have added two chapters to try to make it clear, with a couple of case studies, how this redefinition might work out. The two topics I have chosen—the sabbath and monogamy—have not been particularly hot topics in recent discussion, and for that reason they may be better places to think through the wider issues than some of the subjects over which passions are easily aroused. I am under no illusions that I have said the last word on these subjects, but I suspect that for many Christians, they will at least open up trains of thought that should be useful both in themselves and in illustration of the larger theme. I am grateful to the publishers for this chance to expand the range of the book.

I have been particularly spurred to write this book by participating in two commissions which have been looking at the nature of communion (as in the phrase the Anglican Communion) and to which, naturally, questions about the Bible have been central. The International Anglican Doctrinal and Theological Commission met under the chairmanship of Bishop Stephen Sykes from 2001 to 2008. The Lambeth Commission, chaired by Archbishop Robin Eames, met three times in 2004 and published its findings (the Windsor Report) on October 18 of that year. The central thrust of the present book was developed, in conversation with my colleagues, as part of the work of both these groups, and the overlap of some passages here with some paragraphs of the Windsor Report is an indication of my indebtedness to my colleagues and the conversations which forced me to think through issues afresh and to clarify what I was trying to say. I dedicate this book to Stephen and Robin with profound gratitude for the way in which they have handled the lively discussions on both commissions, and for thereby helping me to think more deeply into the relevant issues.

The present book makes no pretense at completeness, in terms either of the topics covered or of the debate with other writers that might be expected. It is more a tract for the times. I trust that those who have grumbled at the length of some of my other books will not now grumble at all the things I have left unsaid in what is necessarily a very compressed, at times almost telegraphic, treatment. I would like to think that I might one day return to the topic at more leisure, not least in order to interact with the many writers from whom I have learned a great deal and who may spot that their ideas are being borrowed, or perhaps engaged with, in the pages that follow. In addition, I am extremely grateful to those who read the text and commented on it at short notice: Dr. Andrew Goddard, Professor Richard Hays, Dr. Brian Walsh, and my brother Dr. Stephen Wright. They are not responsible for what I say, and indeed will continue to disagree with me at certain points, but they have helped me greatly in making things clear. I am grateful as always to SPCK, and specifically to Simon Kingston, Joanna Moriarty, Sally Green, Yolande Clarke, and Trisha Dale for their help at various stages of the work.

I have written of the Old Testament and the New Testament, fully aware that many today regard those phrases as inadequate or prejudicial, preferring phrases like Hebrew scriptures (though some are in Aramaic) and Christian scriptures. I write as a Christian, and from the beginning, as I shall argue, followers of Jesus Christ regarded the ancient Israelite scriptures as having reached a climactic fulfillment in Jesus himself, generating the new covenant prophesied by Jeremiah. We cannot pretend to a neutral set of labels. I hope that this, and other linguistic details, will not distract anyone from what I am actually saying.

The prologue sets the scene, putting the discussion about the Bible into its context within church history and then into the context of contemporary culture. Those who already know all this, or who are eager to get to the heart of what I want to say, could if they wish, skip to chapter 1, where the story really starts.

My own church has for centuries used a wonderful prayer which I make my own in completing this task:

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning, grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life which thou hast given us in thy Son, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Tom Wright

Auckland Castle

PROLOGUE

The place and role of the Bible within the church’s mission and common life is once again being heavily contested. Current battles for the Bible in various parts of the church—not least, but not only, within debates about sexual ethics—need to be understood as part of much wider issues in the church and the world. Until we recognize this fact, understand it and deal with it, we will go on finding that discussions about the authority of scripture, let alone about particular passages and topics, will remain a dialogue of the deaf.

But before I tackle these issues directly, I must cover some preliminary matters—hence, a prologue.

First, then, a brief sketch of the place of the Bible within the Christian church, to be followed by a look at the role of scripture within contemporary culture.

Scripture within the Church

THE FIRST 1,500 YEARS

The Bible has always been central to the life of the Christian church. Jesus himself was profoundly shaped by the scriptures he knew, the ancient Hebrew and Aramaic texts whose stories, songs, prophecy and wisdom permeated the Jewish world of his day. The earliest Christians searched those same scriptures in their effort to understand what the living God had accomplished through Jesus, and in their eagerness to reorder their life appropriately. By the early second century many of the early Christian writings were being collected, and were themselves treated with reverence and given a similar status to the original Israelite scriptures. By the end of the second century some of the greatest Christian minds were making the study and exposition of scripture, both the ancient Israelite texts and the more recent Greek ones written by Jesus’s followers, a major part of their work in pursuing the mission of the church and strengthening it against persecution without and controversy within. Though we often think of subsequent writers like Origen, Chrysostom, Jerome and Augustine—and, much later, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin—as great theologians, they would almost certainly have seen themselves first and foremost as Bible teachers. Indeed, the modern distinction between theology and biblical studies would never have occurred to any of them.

THE REFORMATION TO THE PRESENT

The sixteenth-century Reformers appealed to scripture over against the traditions which had grown up in the church during the Middle Ages; the churches which stem from the Reformation all emphasize (as the early fathers had done) the central importance of the Bible. Whether Lutheran or Reformed, whether Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist or Methodist, or whether the newer Pentecostal churches, all officially accord scripture the central place in their faith, life, and theology. This has marked out the post-Reformation churches from the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches, which give a more complex and interwoven account of how scripture operates within the life of the church. But those older churches, too, have never shrunk from the insistence that scripture remains the written word of God. Indeed, they have been known to criticize the post-Reformation churches not only because of differences in the interpretation of specific texts, but also because of what seems to them a cavalier attitude to scripture itself.

DEVOTION AND DISCIPLESHIP

Scripture has never, in any major part of the Christian church, been simply a book to be referred to when certain questions are to be discussed. From the very beginning it has been given a key place in the church’s worshipping life, indicating that it has been understood not only as part of the church’s thinking but also as part of the church’s praise and prayer. As well as the obvious use of the Psalms at the heart of Christian worship in many traditions, the reading of the gospel within the eucharistic liturgy in many if not most branches of the church indicates the implicit but powerful belief that the Bible continues to be both a central way in which God addresses his people and a central way in which his people respond. The widespread habit of private reading and study of scripture, once a more particularly Protestant phenomenon but now widely encouraged among Roman Catholics as well, has a long track record as a central part of Christian devotion.

Not only devotion: discipleship. Reading and studying scripture has been seen as central to how we are to grow in the love of God; how we come to understand God and his truth more fully; and how we can develop the moral muscle to live in accordance with the gospel of Jesus even when everything seems to be pulling the other way. Since these remain vital aspects of Christian living, the Bible has been woven into the fabric of normal Christian life at every point.

Different churches have developed different ways of making this theory a reality. My own church (the Church of England, part of the Anglican Communion) has classically expressed its beliefs about scripture not by writing massive treatises or doctrinal compendia on every possible issue, as though to close things down and relieve ordinary Christians of the need to read, think, and pray with a fresh mind. Rather, it has insisted that reading scripture remains the focal point of its public worship. It has encouraged all Christians to read and study scripture for themselves. And it has charged its leaders, particularly its bishops, with the central and solemn task of studying and teaching scripture and ordering the life of the church accordingly.

Scripture within Contemporary Culture

The Bible doesn’t live just within the church, because the church (if it is true to its own nature and vocation) is always open to God’s world. Our contemporary culture impinges on the questions that are being asked about the Bible, and does so in a variety of ways.

I want next to look at five areas of contemporary culture, each of which interacts with the others in complex interlocking patterns: culture, politics, philosophy, theology, and ethics. This list is by no means exhaustive, but it gives an indication of why it is intrinsically difficult, not least in the Western world today, to use scripture in a way which will command recognition and assent across the church, let alone before the watching world.

SCRIPTURE AND CULTURE

The continuing and much-discussed interplay between modern and postmodernculture has created a mood of uncertainty within Western society at least. There are three areas that can be easily identified.

First, the big, older stories of who we are and what we’re here for have been challenged and deconstructed. This is, in a sense, turning modernism’s rhetoric on itself. Modernism (the movement which began with the eighteenth-century Enlightenment) made its way, through writers like Voltaire, by attacking the big, overarching story told by the church. Postmodernity has now done the same to all the great stories by which human beings order their lives (metanarratives), not least the stories of progress and enlightenment which modernism itself made its stock-in-trade. The Bible, rather obviously, not only offers some fairly substantial individual stories about God, the world and humankind, but in its canonical form, from Genesis to Revelation, tells a single overarching story which appears to be precisely the kind of thing people today have learned to resist. Like all metanarratives, it is instantly suspected of being told in order to advance someone’s interest. It is, people suspect, some kind of a power play.

Second, the notion of truth has been under scrutiny and indeed attack. Many today operate with two quite different types of truth. If we asked, Is it true that Jesus died on a cross? we normally would mean, Did it really happen? But if we asked, Is the parable of the Prodigal Son true? we would quickly dismiss the idea that it really happened; that is simply not the sort of thing parables are. We would insist that, in quite another sense, the parable is indeed true in that we discover within the narrative a picture of God and his love, and of multiple layers of human folly, which rings true at all kinds of levels of human knowledge and experience.

So far, so good—though most people do not always stop to muse over these different senses of true and their implications for other questions. Instead, late modernity has tried to squeeze more and more areas of human discourse into the first type of truth, making a fact out of everything and thereby trying to put everything into the kind of box which can be weighed, measured, and verified as if it were an experiment in the hard sciences like chemistry, or even an equation in mathematics. But this attempt has overreached itself, not least in areas like history and sociology. Now postmodernity has pushed us in the other direction: toward supposing that all truth, including the supposed facts of scientific experiment, can be reduced